


Runaway

by mckinlily



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 07:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6601960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mckinlily/pseuds/mckinlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius gets in a row with his parents. James comes to his rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runaway

“ _Prongs! Prongs! JAMES FLEAMONT POTTER!”_

James hastily shoved the piping mirror deeper into his pocket and contrived to look innocent as his father looked over at him.

“Did someone say my name?”

_“PRONGS!”_ roared the tinny voice from the mirror. James sat on it.

“Uh, no. Nope, nothing. Uh, can I go? I – uh – have to go to the loo.”

“Sure you do,” said Euphemia Potter, shaking her head good-naturedly.

“Yeah, well, nature calls. Don’t want any accidents.” James hastily got up from his seat at the dinner party his parent’s elderly and sophisticated friends and edged toward the door. “Keep… chatting. Yeah. Don’t mind me. I’ll be back.”

“Poor boy,” said Euphemia in a voice that she probably meant to be a whisper. “No one within a decade of his age.”

A loud crash echoed out of James’s pocket. Loud enough that all the adults looked up to see what had happened. James decided to cut his losses and darted out of the room.

As soon as James reached his own bedroom, he slammed the door shut and pulled out the mirror from his pocket. It looked ordinary enough, but it was two-way, and James should be able to see what was on the other side of its partner, most likely James’s best friend, Sirius Black.

Except, all James saw right now was the crimson canopy of a bed.

“What the hell, Padfoot?” James hissed. Technically, his parents didn’t know they had the mirrors, and he wasn’t interested in them finding out.

“Padfoot! Oi, pick up!”

Suddenly, the image in the mirror swung around, making James feel slightly sick. He thought he caught a glimpse of an arm. And then the image fell past a chest of drawers, landing with a dull “thump.”

“Padfoot!”

Things, dirty clothes from the look of it, fell onto the image until it went back. The noises coming from the mirror were now very muffled. James held the mirror up his ear to hear them. Angry voices. He couldn’t make out the words, but there was a lot of yelling. He could hear Sirius. Furious.

“Padfoot!” James shouted into the mirror. “Sirius!”

James heard more bangs and crashes, but Sirius was too far gone to hear _him_. James shoved the mirror back into his pocket. If something had happened, if Sirius couldn’t be bothered to wait _two seconds_ for James to pick up --

James grabbed his cloak and sprinted for the broomshed.

                                                                                                   ****

“Sirius, you come out here and apologize to your mother!”

“For what?” Sirius grabbed the last of his things – two left shoes – and threw them into his truck. “Calling her a hag? It’s true! She’s a nasty old woman, and she smells like raw liver!”

“You better lay off the insults, boy, or you’ll --”

“What are you going to do?” taunted Sirius. He slammed the lid down on his trunk. “Mount my head up on the wall like one of the bloody house elves?” He fumbled with the latches, his finger shaking too badly to work properly.

“Sirius Orion Black, you open this door right now!”

Sirius straightened and snatched his wand off his bedside table. There was a _Bang!_ as Orion blasted the door open. Sirius already had his wand up.

“ _Impedima!_ ”

Orion was thrown against the wall and stayed there.

A dark head poked out of the adjoining room. “Sirius, what did you do?” Regulus’s eyes fell on their father. “MUM!”

“Shut up, Reg!” Sirius pointed his wand at his brother; Regulus shrunk behind his door. Orion was stirring, his eyes dazed. Sirius wasted no time. He snatched up one end of his truck and stormed down the hallway.

“Sirius. Sirius! _SIRIUS!_ ”

Orion staggered to his feet. Sirius had already reached the stairs.

“Come back here!” Red sparks barely missed Sirius’s head and hit the wall. Sirius started running, his trunk hitting loudly on every step.

“I’m _never_ coming back!” he hollered. “I’m sick of you all! Your pureblood, your rubbish, your inbreeding! You’re mad, all of you, and I’ve had enough! I’m _leaving_!”

“You can’t leave.” Each of Orion’s words was accented by another spell raining down on Sirius. “You. Are. A. _Black_!”

“I’d rather be dead than a Black!”

Sirius reached the front door and blasted it open. Smoke trailed behind him as he plunged into Muggle London. The December air bit at his cheeks and hands. He hadn’t even thought to put on a cloak. At the moment, fury pounding in his blood beat back the cold. The scrape of the metal of his trunk on the sidewalk screamed into the night. Behind him, he could hear his father shouting at him. The neighbors were starting to peak out their windows.

Then, the air was splint by a horrific, inhuman wail.

“ _Betraaaaaayyyyeeddd!_ ”

Sirius tried to push on, but even he couldn’t stop from looking back.

Walburga Black had appeared, looking more hag-like than ever before. Her eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy scarlet. Her black hair and satin robes, both of which had been impeccable at dinner twenty minutes earlier, were falling to pieces as she waded into the street.

“Betrayed by my own flesh! The child who sucked at my breast! I, who was thy very mother!”

“You’re not my mother!” Sirius shouted. “You never were!”

Walburga stumbled, clutching her chest, and let out a window-shaking howl. “What have I done to deserve such a painful child? I have loved you, cherished you, given everything --”

Sirius dropped his truck. “You never!” He was shaking again. “Loved me? _Loved_ me? You’ve given me _nothing_!”

Orion reached for his wife’s arm, pride etched on his haughty face. “Let him go, Walburga. He’s nothing to us.”

“You think you’ve been my mother?” spat Sirius. By now neighbors were creeping out their doorways. Regulus cowered behind his parents. “Name one thing – one thing! – that wasn’t you spewing your pureblood trash! Blood always mattered more to you than me! Blood and appearance!” Sirius’s wand had ended up in his hand without him even noticing it.

Walburga pulled out her own wand. “You think you can challenge me?” she snarled. “Very well, if you are no longer my _son_  --”

“ _Padfoot!_ ”

Thin fingers clamped around Sirius’s arm. Sirius looked down to see a narrow face with crooked glasses and the most utterly disastrous hair the world had ever seen. For a moment, time seemed to stop for Sirius as he processed the impossible: James Potter was _here_.

“Get out of here, Potter!” snapped Walburga. “This is none of your business.” She pointed her wand.

Immediately, James dragged Sirius behind him. “No,” he said firmly. “He’s mine.”

“Let go, Potter,” growled Orion.

“I said he’s _mine_ ,” said James. He shoved Sirius further behind his back, even despite Sirius’s best efforts to fight him. “So you’d best leave him alone.”

Neither Walburga nor Orion moved. Instead, they stared shell-shocked at James, who, after a minute, turned to Sirius. “C’mon,” he said, picking up Sirius’s trunk. “Let’s go.”

Pushing Sirius so his body always stayed between Sirius’s and the Black’s, James got them moving down the street.

“I will never allow you under this roof again as long as I live!” cried Orion.

“Good,” growled Sirius.

“He’s coming under _mine_ ,” said James.

And somehow, that was the end of it. Walburga started wailing again. Orion was shaking, lips tight with furious pride. And Sirius allowed himself to be prodded by James until they had left the square.

“Just a little further. You were leaving?” James nodded to the trunk he was still carrying.

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “I’m not going back.”

“Good,” said James. “Summer hols always get boring without you around.”

Sirius’s eyes brightened. “You’ll let me stay then?”

“Where else were you going to go?” scoffed James. “Your mad cousins’? Besides Mum and Dad won’t have a problem with it. They like you better than they like me anyway.”

Sirius relaxed considerably. It was as if most his anger has simply evaporated on the moment of seeing James.

It wasn’t until they turned into a dingy alley and he saw James’s broom – James’s prized, loved-more-than-anything, racing broom – lying among the muck that the reality of it all crashed down on him. The row with his parents. That he was gone, really gone, _free_. And James. James was _here_ , in London.

“All right?” said James.

Sirius wanted to say something, but the only thing he could come up with was, “How’d you get here so fast?”

“Flew.” James pointed out the obvious. “What else are racing brooms for?” But Sirius noticed his lips were blue. James, the skinny little bugger, was shivering and trying very hard not to show it.

“Anyway, we going to stand here all night?” said James. “What do you have in your trunk? Reckon there’s anything we could make a harness out of?”

It didn’t take the much time to rig up Sirius’s trunk to James’s broom using some of Sirius’s old robes and a bit of luck. James climbed onto his broom and Sirius followed after putting on his cloak, gloves, and a hat at James’s insistence (“Seriously, the wind chill’s killer”).

Sirius wanted to say something as they flew over the London skyline, but he couldn’t find the words. Over and over, he saw the scene in his mind’s eyes: skinny, little James Potter standing between him and two fully qualified adult wizards. _He’s mine._ The words echoed in Sirius’s mind. _He’s mine._

Sirius wanted to tell him…something. About the row he had with his parents. The awful things they’d said. The awful things he’d said back. The ugly feelings that still churned in his heart. How he was afraid he’d left too late, that the Black stain had already seeped too deeply into him. That he really _wasn’t_ okay, and that he didn’t see how he ever would be.

But he didn’t know how to say it to the skinny boy who’d flown half-way across England in the middle of winter to find him. He couldn’t say what it meant to him, _that_ it meant something to him. Thank you. Was that what he was supposed to say? It seems too trite, not nearly enough to express what he was feeling.

And yet…

“You know they’re not your real family, right? Me, Moony, Wormtail. My parents. We’re your _real_ family. We’re not going to let you go.”

Somehow, James seemed to understand.


End file.
